'Bravura' can refer to a virtuoso performance by a solo artist - in which case this was quite fitting, as Rod accomplished his walk, almost exactly in terms of distance , as he had published in his description, despite having covered himself with the fairly loose caveat "Plus/minus 20k. May come across a bit of most things!"
Coincidentally, Bravura was also the female bard in 'Asterix and the Secret Weapon' who is set up as an example of woman empowerment by the women of Asterix's village. I am all for the empowerment of women, if only it induces them to offer to lead walks!
Anyway this was not to be the Bravura walk in an anti-clockwise direction round the barragem, which brought many to their knees in 2006, as a 'warm-up' for the RTC with a 32.35 km romp. See HERE
A good quorum of 18 turned up, on a cloudy but potentially dry day, despite the rain on the Tuesday, and again on the day following the walk, where as I write it is drizzling down. I was even moved to clad myself in my 'Grasmere Gaiters' to forestall the mud climbing up the inside of my trousers.
All 18 starters, thanks to the 'Gorilla Pod' The dogs obviously miscounted the camera timer!
Rod has supplied the following 12kb of notes and succinctly summarised the conduct of the walk!
Leader: Rod.
Present: Mike P, Paul, Tina, Janet, Hilke, Antje, Ian W., Alex, Ian S., Ingrid, Dina, Vitor, John O´N, Lindsey, Yves, Peter S., Colin.
Dogs: Nandi, Maddy, Tiggy, Sambo, Devina.
Start Location. Barragem de Bravura
Weather: Sun, some light cloud, chilly breeze.
The track (click to enlarge)
Stats: Total Distance: 20.3 km; Moving Time: 4 hrs 41 min; Total Time: 5 hrs 30 min; Moving Avg.: 4.3 km/hr; Overall Avg.: 3,7 km/hr; Total Ascent: 524 m.; Max Elev.: 169 m.
Gathered at the Barragem carpark....the bar, under new owners, not open until 11.00 in the winter meant pre walk shots were not available....and set off punctually at 09.30. Over the dam and headed into the hills to the east.
The cistus recovers from fire better than the cork oaks
Much timber cutting had gone on here and some extensive replanting of ’sobreiros’´(cork to the masses) as identified by our resident botanist, Lindsey. The going was easy and we covered almost half the advised distance in the first couple of hours.
A stiff climb up from the river to the ridge road some distance below the dam found us quite unpremeditatedly at the site of one of Mike P’s geocaches...which of course he couldn’t find for a while.
Off we set in a continuing westerly direction...an increasing amount of mud but no real difficulties...even the river crossings shortly thereafter were a bit disappointing and nobody even got a bootful !
Will it be a swallow dive?
The track deteriorated somewhat then but attention was diverted by the appearance of a local belle on her steed; the ensuing chat was a bit brief as the steed was a bit put out by the appearance of our motley group and yapping hounds and was understandably anxious to be on its way!
She had a good seat!
A scramble up an old path strewn with newly cut lumber took us to our lunch spot with views down the coast.
Then came the disaster when Yves, after completing his repast, found he was unable to get up! Hauled to his feet he manfully struggled on but it was clear his back was beyond immediate repair.
Antje applies a Masonic handshake in an attempt to cure Yves!
Ian W produced some Valium from the depths of his backpack and this provided enough relief to enable him to stagger down to Bensafrim a couple of K´s away, aided by Vitor.
The Walk of Pain - Yves raises a grimace for the camera
After this brief interlude everyone else carried on....more river crossings provide no challenges (24 hours later and things would have been a bit different!) We wandered through Corte do Bispo ....the site of Sven Goran Eriksson´s much heralded football academy or something. Our leader´s lengthy conversation with the farm manager suggested all this was now merely a ‘sonho’ .....as indeed was the future of the rather unkempt vineyard down below on which much had once been spent.
The first flowers of Spring
From there a cross country route took us back to the barragem carpark without further excitements, having covered almost exactly the estimated 20kms. The bar was by then open and we were effusively greeted by Gretel....Hansel must have been well in the background....her beaming face and cheerful chatter almost made up for the fact she had no Bohemia and was a most welcome change from the previous incumbents!
No wonder he had a stiff back!
Then the mystery of Yves´ back was explained! Dina had been given the keys of his car to return to Bensafrim to pick him up.....she produced the keys and behold, across the somewhat flamboyant keyring was emblazoned... VIAGRA.....obviously he had taken too much!
CB's Comment:
For once I do not have much to pad!
Another of Peter's dogs making a debut today. I really don't know why Sonia would have named her after the hostess of the, 'Big Brother' Game Show though!
There was some interesting conversation on the way round. An unnamed Scot expressed the desire that Cipriani should be in the England Team for the Six Nations to give his side a chance. I said that once he had got over the novelty of having Kelly Brook for a girlfriend, he might have more energy and switch to putting it into the scrum more accurately. For those (like the unnamed Scot) who are unaware of the love lives of our glamorous rugby players, this is Kelly Brook
The next topic was whether Kaka was worth £100 million to transfer to Manchester City. The (possibly) rhetorical question "Is anyone worth that much?" was posed, and after a nanosecond's thought I riposted that Katherine Jenkins would be close. This was immediately refuted by the same Scottish person, who wanted Cipriani selected for England, dissing her angelic voice and porcelain complexion (among other things), but I suspect it was only because his wife reads this Blog, and he wanted to create a good impression!
As Rod recounted, the 'Hansel & Gretel' is a vast improvement under the new management, but their beer is a bit pricey for we economic refugees. Janet barely cleared €5.00 from 18 drinkers!
Blue Tongue disease jumps to humans!
Perhaps worried that I would have nothing to write about, Antje demonstrated to Rod how to make the ink flow in the pen I had tossed to him (and he dropped). Luckily we had no Aussies here to demand his inclusion in the English Test side this summer! However, I suspect she was a little too enthusiastic in her encouragement, and she ingested all the remaining ink in the pen!
Fortunately she had reserved a little of the whisky she habitually carries to enhance her coffee, and this did help in the tongue cleaning process!
I have not yet found out how Yves fared on his casevac to Bensafrim with Vitor, but I hope he has the strength to inform us via a comment to this Blog.
It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Unknown, Source
1 comment:
Hi all!
Still alive, but only just...and many thanks to everyone who helped so kindly with sticks, tablets, water, sweater, etc. Thanks also to my producer, my mother, the man-who-always-has a-stamp-on-his-person and to Vittor for toddling down to Bensafrim with me.
As for the Viagra key-ring, I will only say that an old man's got to do what an old man's got to do, if he does not wish to lose his keys...
It may be safer to give next week a miss, see you all soon!
Yves
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